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Virgin Trains - not exactly first class

I would never travel first class on a UK train under normal circumstances. The cost is prohibitive and no journey is long enough to really merit it. Yet I collect my tickets from the little red machine, only to discover that I will be traveling among the gentler classes. I’m still not entirely sure how this happened. The price I paid seemed reasonable but I know, from previous encounters with Virgin’s website, that little makes sense when booking online.

I gingerly board the train and head to coach A. I was dressed in my usual scruffy fashion and expected to be outed as an impostor immediately. Did the conductor, sorry, train manager, look askance at me when he clipped my ticket? Never mind, we’re pulling away from Edinburgh Waverly and I seem to have made the grade.

Thus far, the first class experience has amounted to increased legroom, and a perspex barrier between me and the Geordies drinking cider. Sadly that half shit, half nuclear cleaning product stench had seeped into the premier coach. Surely it should be hermetically sealed or something? I turn my attention to the brochure that was on my seat. What free stuff do I get? It mentions complimentary tea or coffee and ’snacks’. Not all that promising then. I decide to keep my powder dry on the snack front.

I cherry pick the glossier bits of my newspaper and start to enjoy the journey. It’s hard not to enjoy the verdant countryside of Scotland and northern England, especially as it’s shrouded in an eerie mist this morning. No sooner do I get comfortable though, the PA crackles with some ‘bad news’. Apparently some power lines have draped themselves across the tracks and the train will be terminating in Berwick.

Realising my first class adventure was coming to an end, I make a frenzied dash for the buffet car for my free cup of tea. No sooner do I enter her realm, the woman I hope will give me drinks and snacks, scowls at me. ‘We’re closed! The train is terminating at North Berwick!’ she snaps. ‘Didn’t you hear the announcement?’ she adds in the tone you might use on someone else’s stupid five year old. My dream over, I trudge back to my seat. I get a sympathetic look from one of the Geordies. He’s doesn’t fancy being stuck in Berwick either.

Back at my seat, annoyed and humiliated, I begin drafting the letter of complaint I’ll be sending, probably from Berwick. I’ll make sure that bint is dunking teabags on a train to Barrow and Furness this time next week. Her days on the east coast mainline are numbered. I cackle softly, eliciting a couple of stares from my fellow gentiles.

Before I’ve actually settled on a salutation, there’s another crackle. We’ve had a reprieve it seems, and will arrive in York as advertised. My vitriol recedes at this news. I realise too, that in my vitriol over a cup of a tea, I hadn’t actually spent any thought on how I’d get to my destination if the tracks were blocked. Thoughts of complaint letters vanish and I start looking forward to that cup of tea.

After a dignified pause, I retrace my steps to the crone’s lair. The scowl still remains on the woman’s face, I think it might even have worsened with the news she won’t be getting an early mark. I pull out my coupon with a flourish. Her scowl is quickly replaced with an obsequious smile. ‘Oh sir, if I’d known you were in first class…’ she swoons. I entertain some uncharitable thoughts but smile magnanimously. I head back to my seat with a tea bag in hot water and a kit-kat and a few sweets. This time the cider drinker doesn’t smile.

So there you go, paying a few extra quid on a train, doesn’t get you much. It does mean miserable sycophants treat are more likely to give you tea though. Face it, if you want to experience the romance and majesty of train travel, try France, Germany, India or China. Basically, anywhere but bloody Britain.

Tags: england, first class, rant, train, Travel, virgin